Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Note:

Medicare Ramps Up Readmission Penalties

Plus: CMS adds two new DRGs to readmission penalty list.

Hospitals soon will have even more reason to work closely with you to prevent readmissions. In its latest proposed payment rule for hospitals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services bumps up the maximum payment penalty for overly high admissions from 1 to 2 percent in 2014, CMS notes in a release.

"CMS also proposes to add two new readmission measures which could be used to calculate readmission penalties for FY 2015," the agency adds. In addition to heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia, CMS proposes to add hip/knee arthroplasty and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the readmission penalty list.

Also: For FY 2014, CMS proposes a re-vised methodology to take into account planned readmissions for the three existing readmissions measures, the agency says in a fact sheet.

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